Sometimes it’s easy to forget that each viewer brings his own particular set of baggage to the viewing of a movie. Each member of the audience around you has experienced life differently and has a unique world view shaped by that experience. The fact each movie viewer brings these things to a film explains why some movies resonate with you and some don’t; why your able to suspend your sense of disbelief for some movies and not others; why some characters just grab you while others are forgettable.
It’s the beauty of film. It can be a different experience for each individual. A mass can leave the theater and some of them will have been disturbed by a movie, some uplifted, some provoked to thought and others just not moved one way or the other. It has to do with age, certainly, with upbringing, economic standing, a preponderance of trying times in ones life or a complete lack of struggle all together. The unique combination of factors that make up an individual also shapes how a person sees, and is affected by, a movie.
I was reminded of this when I viewed the Chronicles of Narnia for the second time recently. The first time I saw this movie I was not overwhelmed by it. I liked it, I didn’t love it. It was one of those movies that I found enjoyable but it didn’t really resonate with me. The scenery was gorgeous, the effects masterful and the story had all the elements for wonderment, but for some reason I just wasn’t whisked away like everyone else seems to be.
But then I saw this movie sitting next to a seven year old boy. He saw things in the movie that I didn’t, he felt things in the movie that I didn’t, experienced emotion from it that I just couldn’t. It was both an interesting and odd experience because I had to examine the reasons behind his ability to become involved to such an extent and the reasons why I couldn’t.
When Tilda Swinton’s character, the White Witch, became the obvious villain and began to mistreat Edmund, he expressed surprise. “I didn’t know she was going to be bad,” he whispered.
You didn’t? I knew from the first second she was introduced. I knew from the way Mr. Tumnus spoke about her. I knew her kindness was really treachery. But he did not. He saw someone being kind and immediately thought the best of her. Never mind what he had heard about her, he gave her the benefit of the doubt and was fooled in a way that no adult could be. That I couldn’t be. There was a charming naiveté about the way he saw both the movie and the world around him. It would be a nice thing to have sometimes wouldn’t? The kind of world view that eventually gets beaten off the very young? And what does it say about me and my world view that I could not, even for a second, take her kindness at face value?
Later, when Edmund is accompanying his siblings to the Beavers house, Edmund is acting suspiciously. “He keeps looking between the mountains where the witch lives,” he whispered. “He’s going to do something, he’s gonna make a mistake.”
Me, I hadn’t noticed Edmund’s glances. I never would have considered for a minute that Edmund was about to make a mistake because I already disliked him and assumed he was he was just operating with villainous intent rather than “making a mistake.” Again, I was not about to give Edmund the benefit of the doubt nor was I going to attribute his actions to youthful impertinence. To me, he was just a jerk. And I was not so taken with Edmund that I was watching him closely enough to catch his glances at the witches castle. You see, I summed him up as villainous and dismissed him. I assumed I already knew how he would behave and shifted my focus to other characters. The young viewer with me was not so quick to write him off. So innocent and given to trust human nature that he was still uncertain how Edmund would act.
It was nice and sad to see his eyes filled with wonderment. Most adults just see great CGI, they don’t get so caught up in the world of Narnia that they’re lost in it. They can’t be fooled by the characters so they don’t find the great joy in the redemption of Edmund. For the young man with me Edmunds redemption was a reassuring affirmation of his belief in people. For an adult it was unbelievable because he was a jerk and a brat, people don’t change like that, it was just not realistic to us. I would love to be naïve enough, just for a while, to see a movie from that viewpoint one more time.
Director Andrew Adamson did a tremendous job with this movie. It took a more youthful vantage point to make me see it. He made magic with the movie, handled the characters with just enough tenderness and levity to keep the dynamic and likeable. He did things with the film I just couldn’t see on my own. I mean, who but the very young could see the wisdom and fantasy in Santa dispersing weapons?
Special mention to Tilda Swinton here, she was amazing. The entire cast was terrific and Liam Neeson was wonderful as the voice of Aslan, though the Disney purist in me insisted on wanting to hear James Earl Jones. For a guy who’s previous credits included the more jockular Shrek films, Adamson surprised me with the tenderness and and complexity he gave this movie. Perhaps he filmed it from the perspective I should have had when viewing it.
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